#marchmadness

"Now and then, it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."

Sometimes you need lazy Sundays.  Sundays of pajamas and poptarts, Sara Bareilles and Mat Kearney, spring cleaning and stumbling upon things you didn't mean to stumble upon.  You need to cry some and smile and laugh at yourself and think, think, think.

If you knew how many times I started this post, only to change my mind and erase it all, you'd count your blessings that I didn't post all of those other ones.  My head is a little cloudy now.  All the thoughts and all the things.

"She couldn't remember the last time she had tried something new.  So she decided to walk through her fear and give herself the gift of something she had never done before.  It didn't matter if it was big or small, it was just for her and she deserved it."

That's sort of where I'm at lately.  Choosing to see things differently than I did before.  I've learned a lot about myself, relationships, the world, life, Jesus, my calling, and so much more.  I feel pretty tugged in a lot of directions.  Which isn't bad, promise that it's a pleasure to see Jesus working in me.  But it's left me somewhat emotionally drained.  

Onward we go.  Pursuing happiness, but resting in the current state of things.  Loving people and ourselves and the world and Jesus.  I'm trying really hard to soak it all up.  I can't believe that my sophomore year of college is almost over.  I can't believe that my niece is almost four or that I'll be home for summer soon and that'll be real interesting or that I'm making so many new friends lately.  And I'm maybe a little in denial of the fact that Jesus is opening some doors, but closing others.  Yet, we'll continue on, heads held high and faces set forward.

It's very interesting to me how we (as in people) still smile.  I call that resilience.  That, despite all the world has to throw against us, we march on, to the beat of our own drums.  Those things stacked against us are hardly a factor in our pursuit of goodness.  What a marvelous thought that we aren't defined by what happens to us, but rather, how we react to those things.

I'm really thankful for Jesus.  I'm thankful that He continues to reveal His character to me more and more.  He's a friend, a dear companion, a helper, an encourager, a believer in me, a firm foundation.  He's so much more than just someone that saved me from my sin and I'm blessed to realize that.  It's crazy how all things (literally, every single thing) come back to Him.

And in addition to being thankful for the person of Jesus, I'm thankful for the person that Jesus is in me.  I'm thankful that He can be trusted to work in me.  I'm thankful that anything good in me is a direct reflection of His goodness.  I'm thankful that the words I say and the actions I do are only because Jesus is in me.  Let me not boast in that being my own because I would be so sadly mistaken.

Thank you, Jesus, that you're good.  Thank you for the sweet things you have for us.  Thank you for making a way when we couldn't.  Thank you for working in us.  Thank you for showing us the way when we get lost.  Thank you for seeking us and for protecting us.  Thank you for community to help us.  Thank you for sweet words and firm promises.  Thank you for be the God of immeasurably more.  Thank you for your perfect plan, even when we don't see it's perfection.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Philippians 3:12-16: Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

"She dared to believe that what was in her head and in her heart were worthy of her attention and action.  And when she put her mind to it, she could do anything."

Thanks for reading my thoughts.  I know they're all over the place, but I'm thankful for you, too.  Happy Sunday.